Page 9 of Taken By the Bounty Hunter

Joaquin sits back down, crosses his arms, and glares at me.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

Chapter Three

Georgie

All my life, I’ve wondered what it’s like for normal families. For children to have access to their fathers.

“Dad? What’s going on? Why are we here?”

His smile is mixed with genuine confusion as if this appointment was in my phone calendar—as if I were allowed to have such a device.

“You think I’d forget your birthday?” He leans in, planting his elbows on the table.

I stare at him. I’d forgotten entirely. In all the days I was counting off by scratching marks on the floor, I never once thought about it.

“I’m 20 today,” I say, barely audible.

He smiles, and his kind eyes crinkle.

My dad has always been one of the more handsome of the church elders. So many of the prospective sister-wives vie for Elder George’s attention. They don’t know that the favorite wife barely has enough allowance to feed her brood every month.

The silver specks in his dark hair glint in the light from the diner’s smudged window as he tilts his bulky frame back, allowing room for our server to set down his plate of steak fries and chicken fingers.

I barely remember the last time I had one-on-one time with my dad. Let alone a meal with him on a birthday.

Then, something clicks.

In this family, these outings usually happen on a daughter’s 16th birthday. It’s when Dad gives us the “talk” about who we’re promised to. This is when the grooming begins, preparing us for marriage at 18.

The quicker and easier we’re married off, the fewer mouths he has to feed.

But when I was 16, I was sick. That’s what sent me to Goldie in the first place, and that’s what got me interested in herbs and natural medicine. My periods were so painful that my father delayed my marriage plans for as long as he could. I milked my illness for years, lying about the fact that I might not be able to bear children.

That charade worked until it didn’t.

More women were escaping. Families with children up and vanished in the middle of the night.

Two months ago, weeks after Goldie escaped, the elders came snooping around the greenhouse. I knew the “talk” was comingsoon, so I secretly stashed as much food away as I could for my younger siblings, stealing some from the silos little by little over a period of weeks. And then, I asked to use a stranger’s phone while running an errand in town.

There was a phone number written on the inside of the wax paper wrapper from a sucker found in the mysterious bag of candy left for the school children.

So I called it. And that night, Olivia, Louisa, and Goldie came with their trucks, a trailer, and half a dozen men with rifles.

It felt like my life was finally about to begin.

I look pointedly at my father across the table from me.

“I’m not going to get married. They can lock me up again if they want to.” My chin wobbles at the thought. If I go back behind lock and key, I’ll die. I’ll either waste away, or I’ll die fighting to get out.

My father squirts some ketchup into his basket of fries. The burger and onion rings in front of me remain untouched. A shame, because I love onion rings. But the sense of doom in this conversation is making me queasy. “You don’t even know who it is.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Doesn’t matter if it’s not Jefferson Hope.

“That’s your problem right there,” he lectures, pointing at me with his fork. Dad dislikes getting his hands dirty. He eats sandwiches with a fork and knife. “It’s your close-mindedness. I’ve put off your engagement for as long as I could. I knew you weren’t still sick at 18, Georgie. You should thank me for covering for you as many years as I did.”

I suppose I should thank him, but I just gape at him in surprise. Thank him for what? He could have pulled strings to prevent me from getting locked up as punishment for running away.

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